1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photosensitive material processing device which holds a small amount of processing solution and is well-suited for the developing process of negative films used for photography.
2. Description of the Related Art
A negative film used for photography, which is a silver halide photosensitive material, must be subjected to a developing process after being photographed. To this end, the photographed negative film is sent into a processing device for developing negative films in which processing solutions such as color developing solution, bleach fixing solution, washing water and the like are stored in respective processing tanks. The negative film is successively immersed in color developing solution, bleach fixing solution, and washing water so as to be subjected to the developing process. In order to carry out a reliable developing process, a large amount of processing solution must be stored in each of the conventional processing tanks housed within the processing device.
Further, because deterioration of the processing solution is promoted by oxidization, even when only a small amount of the processing solution is needed for processing negative films per day, in order to maintain high quality development of negative films, a large amount of replenishing solution must be replenished into the processing solution in conformity with the large amount of the processing solution so that the characteristics of the processing solution can always be maintained constant.
As described above, because it is necessary for the above processing device to use a large amount of the processing solution, in order to stabilize the processing solution, it is also necessary to use a large amount of the replenishing solution, accordingly. Therefore, the cost of operating the processing device increases and processing tanks are made large to store a large amount of processing solutions so that the processing device for housing the processing tanks which have been made large, needs to be large.
In order to solve the aforementioned drawbacks, a method of improving a processing device by making processing tanks compact and by storing a small amount of processing solutions in the processing tanks can be found. However, drawbacks arise in that when the processing tanks are made compact, a negative film easily contacts the inner wall surfaces of the processing tanks so that conveyability of the negative film deteriorates.
In recent years, there exists a photosensitive material processing device in which a magnetic writing layer is disposed on a negative film and information for processing the negative film or the like can be written into the negative film. However, there has been a drawback in that because the magnetic writing layer on the negative film contacts the inner wall surfaces of the processing tanks, the magnetic writing layer is damaged by abrasion or the like so that reading accuracy of the magnetic information decreases.